The National Rifle Association (NRA) has released an "advertisement" that is a clear call to white supremacists and the Radical Right to rise up. It removes the veneer that the NRA is focused on protecting gun rights, instead putting forward a narrative that looks more racist radical right. This video is clearly crafted with the far right as the desired audience. The tone, images, and message are all characteristic of media out of this movement. What is chilling is not so much the video itself, but that it is produced by one of the most influential lobbies in Washington. It is the NRA, and its ability to mobilize a highly reactive membership, that holds the ears (and votes) of legislators. Below is Bill Moyers and Michael Winship's response to the NRA call to arms. My discussion resumes following their's.

From Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

Source: BillMoyers.com

Take a look at the ad below and ask whether the National Rifle Association can go any lower. Ponder this flagrant call for violence, this insidious advocacy of hate delivered with a sneer, this threat of civil war, this despicable use of propaganda to arouse rebellion against the rule of law and the ideals of democracy.

On the surface this is a recruitment video for the National Rifle Association. But what you are really about to see is a call for white supremacy and armed insurrection, each word and image deliberately chosen to stir the feral instincts of troubled souls who lash out in anger and fear:

Disgusting. Dishonorable. Dangerous. But also deliberate. Everything deplored by the NRA in the ad is committed by “they” — a classic manipulation turning anyone who disagrees with your point of view into “The Other” — something alien, evil, foreign.

“They use their media to assassinate real news,” “They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler,” “They use their movie stars and singers and comedy shows and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again.”

“And then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance.”

Well, we all know who “they” are, don’t we? This is the vitriol that has been spewed like garbage since the days of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, blasted from lynch mobs and demagogues and fascistic factions of political parties that turn racial and religious minorities into grotesque caricatures, the better to demean and diminish and dominate.

It is the nature of such malevolent human beings to hate those whom they have injured, and the NRA has enabled more injury to more marginalized and vulnerable people than can be imagined. Note how the words “guns” or “firearms” are never mentioned once in the ad and yet we know that the NRA is death on steroids. And behind it are the arms merchants — the gun makers and gun sellers — who profit from selling automatic rifles to deranged people who shoot down politicians playing intramural baseball, or slaughter children in their classrooms in schools named Sandy Hook, or who massacre black folks at Bible study in a Charleston church, or murderously infiltrate a gay nightclub in Orlando.

Watching this expertly produced ad, we thought of how the Nazis produced slick propaganda like this to demonize the Jews, round up gypsies and homosexuals, foment mobs, burn books, crush critics, justify torture and incite support for state violence.

It’s the crack in the Liberty Bell, this ad: the dropped stitch in the American flag, the dregs at the bottom of the cup of freedom. It’s a Trump-sized lie invoked to bolster his base, discredit critics, end dissent. Joseph McCarthy must be smiling in hell at such a powerful incarnation on earth of his wretched, twisted soul.

With this savage ad, every Democrat, every liberal, every person of color, every immigrant or anyone who carries a protest sign or raises a voice in disagreement becomes a target in the diseased mind of some tormented viewer. Heavily armed Americans are encouraged to lock and load and be ready for the ballistic solution to any who oppose the systematic looting of Washington by an authoritarian regime led by a deeply disturbed barracuda of a man who tweets personal insults, throws tantrums and degrades everything he touches.

Look again at the ad. Ask yourself: What kind of fools are they at the NRA to turn America into a killing ground for sport?  To be choked with hate is a terrible fate, and it is worst for those on whom it is visited.

Take one more look, and ask: Why do they get away with it?  What is happening to us? How long do we have before the fire this time?

This "advertisement" is extremely important. While it is fear based - which is typical of NRA materials - the fear is not about losing one's right to own guns, rather it paints people exercising their constitutional rights to assembly and free speech, as the "enemy", and a threat law, order, and the United States. The people portrayed are labeled as not being "patriots". This is important because the radical right see themselves as the only true patriots. In making this claim, the NRA defines a very narrow doctrine that overlaps directly with Radical Right messaging - they want an America where any voices other than their own are violently suppressed (until folks either 'go back to where they came from', or are killed off).

This video uses a framework and tone that is typical of materials emanating from the Radical Right movement, and is clearly targeting that group. Please see the slides below. Note the clenched fist mentioned in the video is the symbol for RaHoWa (the racial holy war). Young, "attractive", white women (and sometimes girls), armed with a gun (particularly a long gun in the U.S.), and frequently with the lighting wheel motif somewhere in the picture, are used so frequently by the Radical Right that the image is iconic of RaHoWa. Young women in the movement frequently have RaHoWa tattoos. The fact that the NRA used a woman for their propaganda is not any more accidental than her vituperative tone.

Note: Sometimes a crown with a cross is included indicating the "creativity" movement, a spinoff of the Christian Identity movement embraced by many in the racist radical right. This movement attempts to ennoble its followers, and provides moral legitimization for their actions and goals.

When Sarah Palin was repeatedly portrayed armed, sometimes in combat type gear (different than hunting gear) as in the picture to the right, it sent a clear message of inclusion to the radical racist right. The RaHoWa message was in no way "accidental," and was reinforced by the "Patriots" messaging.

The imaging and style used in the NRA propaganda video  is similar to this video (below) about the Creativity Movement. Note the cover shot where once again we have a young white woman with a long gun. She has a White race Creativity button on her lapel (the 'W' patch), and she is nursing the next generation of the white race.

The NRA is one of the most influential lobbies in the United States. It is one thing when they are rallying their members to protect their second amendment rights against overblown threats. It is another when they are using second amendment concerns as a smoke screen to provide lobbying for acknowledged hate groups (and those who self-affiliate with them) aimed at destroying our government. Of course all of this takes on a more dire meaning with a president who embraces the "alt-right",  whose senior adviser is a spokesperson for them, and the stated goal of the Trump presidency is the "deconstruction of the administrative state" - destroying the rule of law and the legislation that created and maintains the government of the United States.

I hope that members of the NRA who do not subscribe to the beliefs and goals of the racist radical right either cancel their membership in the NRA, or demand that the NRA remove the propaganda from all media.

For those who are not with the NRA, and who do not subscribe to their beliefs, I encourage you to contact all of your representatives (including local and state) and demand that they no longer accept money from the NRA, and that they refuse to bend to the NRA's lobbying pressure.

The NRA must be outed for the extremist organization it is.

Thank you,

librewolf

Photo Credits

Fist on black background - public domain

Russian Rahowa (red background) RPG News - Russian

French Rahowa (white background) Rahowa 73 - France.

Remainder from the Roue Solaire Collection.

Sarah Palin poster from 2011 from Bulletproof Courier.

Rowan Wolf - UncommonThought